Two men plead guilty in home invasion case

Published January 31, 2013 at 7:03 am

Two of three men charged with a felony in Anoka County District Court following a home invasion incident in Coon Rapids the morning of June 4, 2012 have pleaded guilty; the third has had the charge dismissed.

Charged with felony attempted aggravated robbery in the first degree were Marvin Jewell Dancy, 34, St. Paul; Donald Wayne Carter, 35, Minneapolis; and Robert Sirron Owens, 34, St. Paul.

Owens pleaded guilty to the first-degree aggravated robbery charge Jan. 9 and will be sentenced Aug. 22. A scheduled April 8 trial date has been canceled. He is currently in prison on an Ramsey County conviction.

Dancy, who entered a guilty plea to the charge Oct. 3, 2012, was sent to prison for 55 months and 15 days at a sentencing hearing Jan. 18. He was given credit for 134 days spent in jail.

The Anoka County Attorney’s Office Oct. 1, 2012 dismissed the charge against Carter.

Shortly after 9:30 a.m. June 4, 2012, a resident on the 10300 block of Mississippi Boulevard called 911 about three males at a neighbor’s home who he had seen in the neighborhood the day before.

On arrival at the residence, police were told that when a woman answered a knock at the front door, there were two men wearing green reflective vests who said they had come to examine the water softener, according to the Coon Rapids Police report.

The woman let the two men in and while one of them accompanied her downstairs to where the water softener was located the other stayed upstairs, the complaint states.

The man who went downstairs with the woman pulled a gun on her.

Her husband, who was upstairs, spotted the second male and told him the water softener was downstairs, at which point he said the man told him to shut up and demanded money.

The husband fought with the suspect and hit him with a coffee cup, chasing the man from the home into the street, where both men got into a gray SUV driven by a third individual, according to the complaint.

As the vehicle fled the area, the husband and his son threw rocks at it. Nothing was reported stolen in the incident.

Coon Rapids Police broadcast a description of the vehicle and the suspects to area law enforcement agencies.

Late that morning, Brooklyn Park Police received a call about a suspicious gray SUV occupied by three males, who got out the vehicle and ran from it, the complaint states.

Police checked the area and located a maroon GMC Yukon Denali parked on the wrong side of the road, with the driver yelling at an individual, who matched the description of one of the suspects in the attempted robbery and was running toward the vehicle.

The vehicle accelerated away, but was stopped by police, who identified the driver as Carter and the passengers as Dancy and Charles Michael Hicks, also known as Robert Sirron Owens.

According to the complaint, the three men closely matched the descriptions of the home invasion suspects.

The husband identified Dancy as the man with whom he had fought in the kitchen, while the son identified both Dancy and Owens as being involved in the robbery and the wife identified Owens as the male who had pulled the gun on her.

The neighbor identified Dancy, Carter and Owens as the individuals involved in the June 4 robbery as well as coming through the neighborhood June 3.

At the time of his arrest for the Coon Rapids incident Owens, also known as Dontae Shawn Wilson, was wanted in Ramsey County on felony second-degree attempted murder and first- and second-degree assault charges for an incident in St. Paul June 4, 2010.

A Ramsey County District Court judge Sept. 14, 2011 issued a warrant for Owens’ arrest after he failed to appear in court during his trial on the charges. The trial had started Sept. 12.

He had made his first court appearance on those charges Dec. 15, 2010 and posted $100,000 bail Feb. 16, 2011.

Owens was accused of shooting a man that he knew eight times with a silver handgun on Marshall Avenue, St. Paul, the evening of June 4, 2010.

He was identified as the shooter by the victim and by two eyewitnesses.

Aug. 23, 2012 Owens entered an Alford guilty plea to the second-degree attempted murder charge and was sent to prison for 183 months with credit for 278 days served.

Under an Alford plea, the defendant does not admit to the crime, but acknowledges that the prosecution has enough evidence for a conviction.